Liberals disappointed in attempt to embarrass PMO over salaries

Liberals disappointed in attempt to embarrass PMO over salaries

The Liberal brain trust must have been disappointed when it received the results of a request for information on salaries within the Prime Minister’s Office.

The plan was obvious: take the presumably humongous salaries paid out to the privileged court surrounding the Prime Minister, and compare that to the thousands of civil servants being turfed out of jobs by the Conservative government.

The first hint that something might be wrong should have been the fact that the PMO actually handed over the numbers. Knowing Stephen Harper and his attitude to government information — like, why should we tell you the real cost of F-35 jets when we can pretend the bill will be far less? — should have had red flags flying all over Liberal headquarters. As if the Prime Minister is going to hand the third-place party a stick to beat him with.

But the Liberals went ahead anyway, and discovered — shock! — that 21 of the 94 full-time employees make more than $100,000. Now, that’s not peanuts, but hardly outrageous considering that Ontario’s “sunshine list”, the official annual tally of Ontario public employees making more than $100,000, has quadrupled under the Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty and now includes almost 79,000 workers. Plenty of cops in Ontario make more than people in the PMO.

Hopes of denouncing the PMO for providing immunity from staff cuts were also dashed. While costs did increase in Harper’s minority years, they have since been chopped back to 2007 levels, and staff numbers have been reduced 17%.

Perhaps most surprising, though, is a bit of information to which The Liberals didn’t bother drawing attention. The figures show more than a quarter of PMO full-timers — 23 out of 94 — earn less than $50,000 a year, about the same as a first-year elementary school teacher. Considering the hours demanded by the PMO, and the intensity of the job, a case could be made that the Conservatives are seriously exploiting the willingness of people to put in endless hours at mediocre pay. Perhaps the NDP will take up their cause.

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.